How to: Edit Your Instagram Food Pics

Among our most frequently asked questions is: What filters do you use on your pictures?

Our answer: None! Never! Please, dont!

While the filters provided by Instagram work just fine for sunsets and gym-selfies (if you’re in to that sort of thing…we’re not), we find that they make for some funky, unappetizing colors when it comes to food. We do, however, use the editing tools provided by Instagram to touch up our pictures. We are not professional photographers or photoshoppers, but we’ve posted a few pics and collected a few followers. Here is a step-by-step guide to turning food pics into food-porn using one of our favorite shots from Andy’s Chicken in Fishtown (we’re obsessed with this place…stay tuned for the blog post).

Here’s the original pic.

Not bad, right? Some nice natural light, some flaky goodness. Before you start editing, turn the brightness up on your phone so you can see what you’re working with. Let’s get started.

1. The Brightness

The first thing you want to do is to pull up the brightness just a bit. Here, I brightened it just enough to see the details of the picture better. Don’t fuss too much. We’ll be revisiting brightness again.

2. Saturation

Adjusting the saturation is tricky. If you add too much, your food will look like it spent too much time in the tanning bed. When we add saturation, we go just one touch past perfect. This will allow you to add more brightness.

3. Revisit Brightness

Adding just that little bit of saturation allows you to brighten the picture more without washing out the colors. Here, we brightened the picture up quite a bit.

4. Structure and Sharpen

Now we’ve arrived at the “wow-factor”. These two features are vital for textured food like fried chicken as well as shiny foods like melted cheese and chocolate.

5. Post that beauty!

Damn…look how she glows. Now sit back, relax, and watch the “likes” roll in.